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Apple announces flatter, sleeker iOS 7

iOS loses its bubbly skeuomorphism in favor of a more two-dimensional design.

A new version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7, was announced at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The release will feature, among a number of changes, a departure from the bubbly, skeuomorphic design that has prevailed on both iOS and OS X for the last several years in favor of flatter, more angular design elements influenced by Apple SVP of Industrial Design Jony Ive.

The most front-facing part of the OS, the home screen, now has app icons that lack the dimension and gloss effect of previous versions. Design elements within the icon, like the musical note on the Music app icon, appear as a flat design flush with the background rather than a cutout like before. iOS 7 isn't doing away completely with dimensionality, as some text elements shown in the intro video still feature embossing, and Ive emphasized that the OS focuses on "depth and vitality."

The look of several key apps in iOS 7.

Many of the skeuomorphic touches are also gone from the OS, such as the textured paper in the iBooks app and the leather-bound elements in the Calendar app. Of the Game Center redesign, Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi stated, "we just ran out of green felt."

The design also features much more black and white in place of color. Overall, colors in the OS have been lightened, and the prevailing font has been slimmed down. The interface responds to motion and can move app icons on the home screen in parallax in relation to the background behind them.

The Control Center in iOS 7.

Folders look the same, but users can swipe right or left to see more items within.

Live animations also prevail in the OS, including on the lock screen and in a top-down view of weather information in various locations. Folders can now have multiple pages, and broadly speaking, the OS now allows users to swipe between nested menus and interfaces rather than using a soft back button. A notifications menu is now accessible from the lock screen (presuming there are no security measures in place).

A "Control Center" in iOS 7 swipes up from the bottom of the home screen, giving access to quick settings like WiFi on/off, airplane mode, and a flashlight. The OS will also integrate with the iCloud keychain that was announced during the OS X Mavericks portion of the WWDC keynote.

A new multitasking interface appears to feature windows showing active apps that are scrollable above their icons. iOS 7 notices which apps a user checks periodically throughout the day and will update them according to the usage pattern. The multitasking interface is pulled up by a "double tap" of the Home button. Push triggers will update apps when they pop up a notification rather than waiting for the user to actually open the app before pulling in new information.

AirDrop support will be added in iOS 7, which allows for direct file-sharing between iOS and mac OS X devices over WiFi. Information like contacts or photos can be shared over AirDrop using an ad-hoc connection. "No need to wander around, bumping your phone," said Federighi.

Swiping through Safari tabs in iOS 7.

Siri's answers can now include search results from Bing.

Updates to Safari include a new bookmark-browsing and reading list-browsing interface. Tabs now appear as a scrollable stack, which are no longer limited to 8 tabs.

The camera app now allows users to swipe between normal, square, and panoramic crops, as well as live photo filters. "Moments" within a revamped Photos app allow users to browse their photos by location and pull them into an album together. A new sharing interface also allows users to share video from within Photos, which can now be captured at 60 frames per second.

Siri has been updated with an optional male voice in iOS 7 in English, French, and German and now integrates search results for Wikipedia, Bing, and images. Siri will power an app called "iOS in the Car" that will live inside vehicles coming in 2014, where drivers can request directions, have messages read to them, or play music via a hands-free interface.

The App Store app has also been updated to pull in updates automatically—no more red badge nagging you to temporarily render your favorite apps inactive while they update.

A screenful of mostly unsubstantiated updates that we'll have to poke around the beta to explain.

The redesigned music app in iOS 7.

In terms of personal security, iOS 7 will also now allow users to block phone and FaceTime calls as well as messages, though Apple explained little about how this would work. iOS 7 will have an "activation lock" feature to act as a theft deterrent: if a thief tries to turn a phone off or wipe it, they will not be able to re-activate it.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

You know, it's pointless to argue who "stole" what idea from whom. Everyone is working from the same set of tools. There will be similarities. What matters is that each company can take these tools and put them together in such a way that they make something that's truly their own, and Apple arguably is doing this.

You know, it's pointless to argue who "stole" what idea from whom. Everyone is working from the same set of tools. There will be similarities. What matters is that each company can take these tools and put them together in such a way that they make something that's truly their own, and Apple arguably is doing this.

Yeah, but we're not talking about the existence of a call end button that is a necessity for a phone. We're talking about a style of the phone that used to be all Apple's style, which they sued Samsung for imitating already. Now they've gone and imitated a different style that was already in use with no sense of irony.

I'm very, very happy they're ditching skeumorphism. So far it looks very nice.

Didn't all the apple fans criticize Android for not having skeumorphism and looking too flat? Now that iOS looks flat too it's "good riddance to skeumorphism" and "this is gorgeous".

It is called a "straw man" when you put forward an argument that your opponents never supported. For instance, if I say "all of the Android fans said they hated longer battery life, and now that Android phones are getting decent batter life suddenly it's a good thing", that would be a straw man. Not only is it untrue that "all" of the group felt that way, it's not even true that most or many did.

Not to say you can't find some Apple fanboy somewhere who liked skeumorphism, but it was widely criticized and cringed at by most Apple fans, at least in forums and reviews.

I'm very, very happy they're ditching skeumorphism. So far it looks very nice.

Didn't all the apple fans criticize Android for not having skeumorphism and looking too flat? Now that iOS looks flat too it's "good riddance to skeumorphism" and "this is gorgeous".

No, there have always been apple fans who are pro- or anti- skeumorphic. A number of prominent apple bloggers have previously praised whatever microsoft is calling Metro now-- which is highly non-skeumorphic (more for it's visual style than usability)

The more I see of it, the more I like it (watching the keynote). It looks really, really well designed. Exactly what iOS needs - it (6) looks a bit stale compared to Windows Phone 8 (which I really like, despite owning an iPhone 4 and an iPad).